Christmas Eve 2007

The old familiar story from Luke is always a constant on Christmas Eve.  No matter how well we know it or how many times we have heard it, it nourishes our soul, it feeds our hearts.  We can suspend questions of whether it really happened this way or not, for as a wise person has said, “All stories are true, and some of them actually happened.”  This is our story.  It is true.

The young woman surprised by an angel gives birth in a cave that is used as a stable in a city where she is far from home.  She has no comfort, no status, nothing, except a husband who is not really yet a husband and a belief that this child is a gift from God.  The verification of her hope comes from some other folks who are the dregs of society, shepherds—people who engage in work that was looked down upon.  The ones who were looked down upon looked up and saw the sky’s glory and heard the angels’ song.  Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!

In Luke there is no great star, no wisdom or kingly visitors bearing gifts, nothing except a man and a woman, accompanied by some animals, probably, and a motley band of shepherds who had been overwhelmed by the glory of God one dark night.

In the silent night the cry of a new born in a backwater country split the air and the world has not been the same since. 

If Mary could ask the angel Gabriel, “How can this be?” when she was told she would have a child without the assistance of a husband, we ask the question “How can this be?” that this poor back alley child could have changed the world.  How can this be?  Who was this child?

The other night I could not sleep.  I will not pretend that this came to me in a dream.  But I often find that something bubbles up while I am between sleep and wakefulness.  Here is my inspiration.  How can we understand who Jesus is for us?  We can tell the story of his birth and of his life and of his death and resurrection, but what does it mean? 

So here is my handy, dandy way of thinking about the significance of Jesus.  It is a device which you will have no trouble remembering.  All you have to do is think of the vowels of the alphabet.  A E I O U. 

Jesus is the Alpha, the beginning, the source of all things.  All beginnings are begun in a birth from the source of life itself.  The great Cosmic Christ came into the world as a tiny helpless babe born of a woman in disgrace, not seen as the channel of grace.  Beginnings may be very small and unlikely and full of surprises, but they are all from the one source—God.

Jesus came among people who felt that God was very distant, that Israel and Judah had been forgotten by the Great Creator, had been abandoned. Jesus came as Emmanuel, which means, “God with us,” to show those with eyes to see and ears to hear that God had not ever forgotten them, that God was among them as one who loved and had compassion.  God was and is always present.

But Jesus went even further.  He was the Incarnation of God.  He was God in the flesh on earth.  God was going to get an understanding from the human point of view of what it is like to be vulnerable, to be hungry, to be wet, to be cold, to be afraid, to deal with hormones, to be lonely, to die.  But what humanity received was even greater—that God could dwell in a human being, and in fact, dwell in any and every human being.  Jesus helps us find the divine part of ourselves that we often don’t even know is there until it is loved out, teased into awareness. 

So far we have A for Alpha, the beginning, E for Emmanuel, God with us, I for Incarnation of God as one of us, as within us, and now we have O for Omega, the end.  As Christians, we believe that the human story, history, is going somewhere.  We started out at the beginning, and we are in Middle Earth somewhere, and one day, there will be an ending, a completion of the human experiment.  In the meantime, the Church Year goes round and round, and spring follows winter, and light follows dark, but it is not just one darn circle after another.  It is more like a slinky, going round and round and forward at the same time. 

We have no idea where the end is or when the end will be, but we have the hope that every generation has had since Jesus came that it is going to a glorious end.  We are here now as recipients of the hope that was passed on to us and we are bearers of the hope that goes on to the next generation.  Your lives do matter.  What happens in the world is important.  We are going somewhere!

A for Alpha, E for Emmanuel, I for Incarnation, O for Omega, and U for Union.  Jesus was a mystic.  He had the heart of God.  He knew Union with his Abba, and in his union with God, we have been invited to be in Union with God and with every single part of God’s creation.  Jesus was the end of division, the beginning of making all things, all peoples’ One.  He was the revelation that our heart’s desire is to be in union with God and with all peoples and creation.  He was the revelation that there is no separation except in our minds when we have not let our heart’s knowledge get to our head.  This is why it is important for us to pray so that we may have the consciousness of Jesus that we are all the One Body, the One Manifestation of Spirit.

Well, we have the five vowels.  But we all learned in school that there is one more possible vowel in the English language and that is “Y”.  And in this homily—Y is definitely a vowel.  A E I O U and always Y because Y stands for YES!  God’s great Yes.  Jesus was God’s Great Yes. 

Brother David Steindl-Rast talks about gratefulness bringing joy to life, how important it is to take nothing for granted.  When we take nothing for granted we find surprises everywhere and no end to joy.  He says, “Everything is a gift.  Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging.  Can our world survive without gratefulness?  Whatever the answer, one thing is certain:  To say an unconditional yes to the mutual belonging of all beings will make this a more joyful world.  This is the reason why yes is my favorite synonym for God.”

Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Just say it and your heart opens, like the word “Alleluia” 

The world is a place of wonder, and no matter what else is happening, there is always a call to joy.  Don’t let the sorrows of the world, the memories or fears of your lives rob you of your joy, of this moment of Yes!  Of the peace that passes understanding and the joy that is your every cell dancing with life. 

Yesterday at the pageant the reader said the wisemen brought the babe gold, frankincense and “mirth” instead of myrrh.  How wonderful to bring joy to the child who brings joy to us!

AEIOU  and always Y  Our response is Joy—for we are like those in prison who are about to be freed, we are like miners trapped beneath the earth who have just heard the rescue team’s voices, we are, we are, we are part of the great cosmic Yes and no one can take that from us unless we let them.

It is as if we are sitting on the side of a door.  All we need to do is pull open that door.  And we are not sure if can or want to do it.  Perhaps we don’t even see the handle.  I remember some years ago when I did a woman’s support group in a local shelter.  One woman who came to the group week after week did not show up one day.  It turns out she was sitting on the other side of the door.  She kept pushing and the door didn’t budge.  She thought she was locked out, perhaps we had locked her out.  But why she didn’t stand up and pull the knob was anyone’s guess.

I suspect there are many reasons why we don’t pull open the door to what God has waiting for us on the other side.  But when we do open it, it is all good.  It is like those Christmas mornings when you were a child and you opened the door to the living room and there was an enormous assortment of toys and packages under the tree.  And you were filled with wonder and amazement and joy.

When we let our hearts open to the gift of Jesus, when we say Yes and Thank to God,  there is no limit to our joy.  Our psalm this evening says we are to “shout for joy.”  Well, we are going to do a little dance for a joy, a sing out for joy.

Now I wonder if you would allow yourself a small joyful dance?  We have these pews that prevent us from jumping up and down or making huge happy circles.  But we can raise our hands and we can make them move.  So one hand is AEIOU—five fingers.  And Your other hand is “Yes.”  So stand now and dance with your hands and sing with me the first verse of  “Joy to the World.”

May you have a joyful Christmas, with loved ones, with the knowledge that Christ is with you and within you, always.  Remember A E I O U and always Y.  Yes!